The Man with the Black Feather/Advertisements
A new novel by the author of "Happy Hawkins"
By Robert Alexander Wason
Author of "Happy Hawkins," etc., etc.
Illustrated by HANSON BOOTH
$1.25 net; by mail, $1.37
A modern, city-bred "Happy Hawkins," one Philip Lytton by name, a young man with ample fortune and excellent ideas about enjoying the good things in life, takes to heart the taunts of his lady love and engages entertainingly in business. Making a failure of it in his simple, blundering way he leaves New York to seek his fortunes in the Far West. Here Mr. Wason takes us over familiar ground in that country that he knows so well and has already written about so engagingly in Happy Hawkins, the country which Dr. Crothers so well names "the land of the large and charitable air."
Mr. Wason knows men and women, their strength and weakness, their vices and virtues, and packed to the covers though it is with incident, with suspense, with the essence of story interest, his new book yet carries a strong moral. His fresh, spontaneous humor, which the Nation has called "American humor in its best estate," flashes everywhere.
Someone has compared a Wason book to the wildwood, with its lights and shadows, its lilting melodies, its sudden storms, its joyous freedom. Editors, publishers, his friends, his critics, have all objected to an apparent lack of technique in Mr. Wason's writing; but he continues to mingle humor and pathos, the dramatic and the argumentative, the tender and the cynical, with all the prodigality and originality of old Nature herself. Of stories there is no end; but in addition to a real story, a Wason book gives the reader the rare privilege of intimate association with a broad, sympathetic and discriminating personality. It is not necessary to agree with him—he fattens on controversy—and the reader who enters into the spirit of it can find much of what Stevenson calls the joy of mental wrestling.
AN UNUSUALLY POWERFUL NOVEL
Her Husband
The Mystery of a Man
Author of "Princess Sonia," "A Heaven-Kissing Hill," etc., etc.
Illustrated by LUCIUS WOLCOTT HITCHCOCK
$1.35 net; by mail $1.48
This is Miss Magruder's most powerful novel; in fact, it is the novel on which, in her own opinion, her literary reputation will rest. In it she displays to the full her command of the arts of the storyteller, her ability to lead the reader breathlessly from climax to climax, her power as a delineator of character, her broad acquaintance with human nature and her knowledge of how to express human emotions to their last, tingling vibrations.
The story centres around the puzzling character of Egbert Lothian. And here indeed is a man who is a mystery from the very beginning of the novel—in his wooing, in his courtship, in his marriage to the remarkable heroine of the story,—the charming young American girl whom this interesting, distinguished Scotchman so captivates—in his married life—and who grows more and more remarkable and mystifying, even to his wife, as the romance goes on, until near the close of the story the wife and the reader are amazed and held breathless at a disclosure of which neither she nor any one else had the slightest hint or conception. Through the whole gamut of human emotions the girl in this novel passes, and the reader follows her and the man at her side with wonder and fascination.
During its publication in the columns of a current popular magazine this novel created a storm of discussion. For serial purposes the story was condensed to about half its length. In book form it is now for the first time presented in its entirety.
AN IMPORTANT AMERICAN NOVEL
By H. A. MITCHELL KEAYS
Author of "The Road to Damascus," "He That Eateth Bread With Me," etc.
$1.35 net; by mail, $1.48
In her new book, which is by far her most important, Mrs. Keays discusses her favorite theme—marriage. She lays the scene of her story in a modern university city which many readers will recognize, and she portrays the life there with an unsparing, but just, understanding. As usual, she develops her characters with unerring skill. In fact, she depicts all her people, both admirable and otherwise, so naturally, so truly, indeed so perfectly, that the delighted reader will be inclined to believe that she writes of real living, breathing, human beings, existing in the flesh in the shadow of a great American university.
The story centers around Adela Cleave, a charming woman who, after a brief marriage and an early widowhood, has won a considerable reputation as an artist in Paris. Returning to her native land to be with her father, an old and honored professor, she is at first inclined to wonder whether life will offer in her new environment so wide a scope for her interest in humanity as had been offered to her delighted senses in Paris. But she early discovers that almost without her knowing it her life is seemingly inextricably entangled with the lives of a homogeneous yet strangely diverse social structure. Her father, "Daddy Mark," as she calls him, or Professor Kay, as he is known to his colleagues, is a most lovable character, and it is many years since we have had in fiction so keenly diverting a person as Mrs. Heming, Adela Cleave's aunt, and a woman with an infinite capacity for martyrdom. The interplay of interests in a university community is alertly realized in the development of the absorbing plot, which shows the gradual growth of as sweet, and tender a love-story as has been told by any American novelist.
A BULLY GOOD STORY!
By GEORGE C. SHEDD
Author of "The Princess of Forge," etc.
Illustrated by STANLEY L. WOOD
$1.25 net; by mail, $1.37
If Jimmy Dukane hadn't been a "good fellow," he wouldn't have got into so much trouble and if he hadn't been a good fellow he wouldn't have—but that's the story!
He had been easily acquiring the record as Perpetual Holiday-Maker for Broadway, when—well, "James A. Dukane, Sr., had, so to speak, brought down his fist on the table with a bang. James A. Dukane, Jr., had been under the fist and his eyes popped open very wide indeed." Dukane and Company were in the concrete construction business and they were erecting a big dam clear out in Nevada. The elder Dukane decided that the way to solve the problem of what to do with Jimmy was to set him to work, so he sent him out to "make a report" on the dam. He—Dukane, Sr.,—then vamoosed for Europe and left young Jimmy to work out his own salvation.
"The green tail-lights of the train flickered, faded, then with a sudden mischievous wink altogether disappeared; the last puffing of the engine was like a hoarse chuckle.
"'Dumped in a puddle at eleven o'clock at night', Jimmy Dukane vociferated resentfully.
"In the caravan just departed there was everything to comfort the soul, to cheer the mind and moisten the palate—bright lights, snug chairs, jolly companions, a well-stocked buffet. Here?—what the deuce was here anyway except water? He faced about. A few miserable beams of light escaped through the dingy depot window out upon the wet platform and gleamed glassily along the rails; some distance away in front of him glowed half a dozen misty, luminous balls like swamp-lanterns, which he surmised to be windows.
"'The governor stung his son and heir this time', he remarked in immense disgust."
That was only the beginning of it. Things started to happen at once and when Jimmy woke up in the morning in this little sage-brush town of Meldon and found his clothes and money gone and a tramp's raiment in their place—with no money—he was naturally indignant. But his indignation fell on deaf ears. Nobody knew him; he knew nobody. He began to get hungry. What should he do?
What would you do?
The story of what he did—and incidentally of how he met a charming girl by the name of Enid—is one of the most delightful that have fallen to the lot of the novel-reader in many a day. Youth—exuberant, unconquerable, "incorrigible" Youth—is in, around and over it all.
You will enjoy "The Incorrigible Dukane."
ADVENTURE-HEROISM-LOVE
A Story of the French Revolution
By MARY OPENSHAW
Author of "The Cross of Honour"
$1.25 net; by mail, $1.37
In this, her second novel to be given to American readers, the author of "The Cross of Honour" tells a fine, brave story that will still further enhance the reputation won by her previous book. "The Loser Pays" is the story of the devotion to love and duty of no less a personage than Rouget de Lisle, the author of the "Marseillaise." Many other writers have already taken the French Revolution as their theme but Miss Openshaw is one of the few who have made it vivid and human. In fact, it is not too much to say that no one else, since Felix Gras wrote "The Reds of the Midi," has given us a story of the French Revolution of so fine a quality.
"A stirring tale, capitally recounted."—London Times.
"The possibilities of the Revolution in France as a subject of fiction are almost infinite, but they have seldom been used with so keen a dramatic perception and at the same time so just a regard for the main outlines of history as in Miss Openshaw's book."—Glasgow Herald.
"The story is so fascinating that the reader closes the book only when he has reached the last page. 'The Loser Pays' will be successful because the author has a good story to tell. It may be recommended to all who like a dashing, romantic story full of incident."—Glasgow Citizen.
"There is really fine description of the September massacres. The story deserves more than a transient place among recent fiction of the Great Revolution."—The Outlook (London).
AN AMERICAN AND AN ENGLISH NOVEL OF PERMANENT IMPORTANCE
By H. A. MITCHELL KEAYS
Author of "He That Eateth Bread with Me," etc.
$1.50 postpaid
The story of a young wife who, when it is proved to her that another woman's boy should call her own husband father, adopts the boy without ever letting her husband know. From, this basic theme Mrs. Keays develops a dramatic and powerful story, "the finest novel of social import," says Mr. Percival Pollard, in his critical volume, "Their Day in Court," "written by an American woman in recent times; one of those rare books proving that all is not hopelessly chaff in the field of American fiction. 'The Road to Damascus' is a book, and contains a character, worthy of long life. The character of Richarda in this book is one of the finest ever drawn by an American woman; the book itself has perhaps the broadest view of life that has been shown on our side of the water."
"A novel of remarkable power. It grips the attention like an Ibsen drama."—New York Times.
"It is all true," says Dean Hodges, "true to human nature and the laws of God."
"I took up the 'Road to Damascus' after dinner," says Ida M. Tarbell, "and did not lay it down until the end. It is a fascinating handling of a difficult problem—a most successful handling, too."
By J. C. SNAITH
Author of "Araminta," "Fortune," "Mistress Dorothy Marvin," etc.
$1.50 postpaid
A remarkable novel, that makes ordinary fiction pale in comparison. Mr. Snaith has produced a book that holds its own among those of Meredith, Dickens, and Thackeray. It is the story of an English country family of the present day. "There is no living writer in England or this country to whom it would not be a credit."—Springfield Republican. "Almost alone of recent English fiction, it plays with equal mastery on all the stops of human emotion."—New York Times. "From the first moment Mr. Snaith makes your attention his willing slave, you read with that rare vacillation which urges you to hurry forward for the story and to linger for the detail."—Atlantic Monthly. "An exceedingly lively and diverting tragic comedy of men and old, acres. Mr. Snaith has invention, energy, and ideas of his own. He has courage and sympathy and the sovereign faculty of interesting his readers in the fortunes of most of his dramatis personae. The author has given us a delightful heroine, a wholly original hero, and a great deal of entertainment, for which we offer him our hearty thanks."—London Spectator.
"A really notable brief for democracy that everybody ought to read."—Nation.
A Middle-Class New-Englander Emigrates to America
By WILLIAM CARLETON
$1.20 net; by mail, $1.32
In this remarkable narrative a man tells simply but with dynamic power how at thirty-eight he lost his position in the office of a big corporation; how he learned that the special training of his own office was of no value in getting him a position in any other office; how at thirty-eight he was already "too old" to get such a position as he had found easily enough at eighteen; how he and his wife and boy in their trim little suburban home were actually confronted with the fundamental problem of how to exist; how he met and solved that problem in a way unexpected and dramatic, though to him and his wonderful wife, Ruth, obvious and natural, by "emigrating" to America; and how in all their struggle they found their lives enriched and inspired by the old adventurous, pioneer spirit of their forefathers.
Once in a while a book appears which so profoundly impresses the public mind that it wins its place as a force in public opinion. Such a book One Way Out has proved itself to be.
"It is a simple story of a simple life, one of the most convincing and interesting of its kind that I have seen in many a long day, and, in my opinion, the book is one that is bound to be widely read and thoughtfully discussed."—James L. Ford in The New York Herald.
"A rare volume: it has inspiration for the doubter, the man who fears he cannot strike out for himself."—Boston Advertiser.
"You have done more good in publishing One Way Out than you will ever know," writes Dr. A. E. Winship, editor of the Journal of Education. "Will not some of the noble rich buy a million copies and see that they are given to those who need them?"
"An engrossing, because a vitally human, story."—J. B. Kerfoot, in Life.
"A great adventure that has most gripping appeal."—New York Times.
"A very genuine inspiration."—Outlook.
"There are some fine suggestions, much food for thought, and a dramatic story in the evolution of the theme."—Literary Digest.
"A book worth forty novels."—William Marion Reedy in the St. Louis Mirror.
"A novel which deserves serious attention as an important contribution to modern American fiction."—Nation.
THE GARDEN OF THE SUN
A Story of Army Life in the Philippines
By CAPTAIN T. J. POWERS, U. S. A.
Illustrated. $1.25 net; by mail, $1.37
The Nation says of The Garden of the Sun:
"Two things distinguish this story from the general run of military novels. One is the vivacity of the dialogue, the other is the beauty of its descriptive passages. Not that it is lacking in action—there is battle, murder, and sudden death enough to stir the most jaded reader of romance.
"The scene is laid in the Philippine Islands and the important male characters, with one exception, are officers of the American army. This exception is Tom Bennett, a rich roué, who is touring the world in his yacht with his unhappy young wife and her sister. Bennett and his party are attacked by Moro pirates in the Sulu Sea and rescued by Capt Ballard and his men. Later they visit the island of Jolo, where Capt Ballard is stationed. Between him and Barbara, Bennett's wife, a strong friendship arises which develops into love. The story of the relations of these two attractive and well-drawn characters is varied by clever pictures of the island life, of dances, of flirtations, of drinking bouts, and of skirmishes with hostile natives.
"Many real and interesting types are introduced, among them a wandering dancing girl, who calls herself La Belle Syria, but is, in spirit and in language, redolent of New York's gay irresponsibility. She uses expressive slang and is a charming, amusing creature. But her place in the novel is not solely that of the comic relief. She is partly responsible for the drunken brawl in which Bennett receives the wound which causes partial paralysis. His helpless condition brings back his wife, who had resolved to leave him.
"But the story does not end here. New complications ensue, in which both Bennett and Ballard are severely tested and from which they emerge heroically. The final chapters of the book, containing a strong and unexpected dénouement, are admirable pieces of dramatic writing. They form a fitting climax to a novel which deserves serious attention as an important contribution to modern American fiction.
"Capt Powers should be given especial credit for his resistance to two temptations. In the first place, although writing of Anglo-Saxon soldiers residing among Orientals, he keeps absolutely clear of the Kiplingesque. In the second place, he describes tropical nature without the sensuous extravagance beloved of Robert Hichens."
SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY
Publishers, Boston